Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So ive been thinking. in 30k/40k there are a lot of technologies that we can only dream of (thats exactly what it is actually). but how does it all work? yeah sure warp tech and whatever else can e straight forward because its all made up but im thinking about how a las bolt works, how an explosive bolt works, why plasma guns overheat, why is a meltagun such short range? and how the is a titan so tall?

it works for every race. what powers a gauss cannon? how do Tau fit into the tiny spaces in battlesuits? how the hell does a ninja death star get fired out of a shurikan cannon? how in gods name does anything Orky move?

speculations on all of these and more are welcome!!

Ork vehicles have big, powerful, unrefined gas engines, often super and/or turbo charged. Most of their gear is pretty understandable compared with other races really, what with simple slug, incendiary & high explosive weapons, albeit often of very large calibre & high fire rates. It's only really when you get into the realm of things like Shokk Attack Guns, KFFs and Kustom Mega Blastas that it seems in any way outlandish or incomprehensible.

With regards to the Tau. Remember minis are not to scale, otherwise how do 10 marines fit in a Rhino?


But for everything else I leave you this....

Worry not for this is the concern of the mechanics, simply satisfy yourself that you fight for the Emperor and that is all you will need against the Hordes that we must prevail against.

 MrBlackledge wrote:
So ive been thinking. in 30k/40k there are a lot of technologies that we can only dream of (thats exactly what it is actually). but how does it all work? yeah sure warp tech and whatever else can e straight forward because its all made up but im thinking about how a las bolt works, how an explosive bolt works, why plasma guns overheat, why is a meltagun such short range? and how the is a titan so tall?

it works for every race. what powers a gauss cannon? how do Tau fit into the tiny spaces in battlesuits? how the hell does a ninja death star get fired out of a shurikan cannon? how in gods name does anything Orky move?

speculations on all of these and more are welcome!!

In old Codices I remember something about how some equipment worked, where some other you can kind of figure out...

Lasguns work like 'our' lasers, diods, capacitors, lenss (magnetic or not... You should notice I am no engineer :p )
Bolts are essentially rockets/sabots: in Hh Massacre, iirc, you are given the calibre (50 to 70 mm, which is huge for guns) their shell is exploded like a round, then the rocket ignites, and it explodes on impact..
Plasma weapons fire plasma - obviously - and plasma is overheated, ionized gas. If the weapon does not have a perfect cooling system, or if you fire it too often, it overheats, that increases the resistance and dilates metal... Shoot again and it will fail
Melta weapons, in earlier days, was said to shoot microwaves (Maybe even white-hot air), so it looses coherency/temp quickly
Titans are giant robots piloted by a crew... It is more plausible than Grendizer manned by one single man..

Necrons' gauss/tesla shoot - I think - electricity in some forms, and I imagine Tau may barely feet, or seat, in crisis chests cockpits, then work the suit via neural connectors. Shuriken weapons have solid cartridges, and use a railgun-like system both to cut the monofilament disc and to hurl it. Orks... Well they put something together, and if it works they use it

 Kerrathyr wrote:

 MrBlackledge wrote:
So ive been thinking. in 30k/40k there are a lot of technologies that we can only dream of (thats exactly what it is actually). but how does it all work? yeah sure warp tech and whatever else can e straight forward because its all made up but im thinking about how a las bolt works, how an explosive bolt works, why plasma guns overheat, why is a meltagun such short range? and how the is a titan so tall?

it works for every race. what powers a gauss cannon? how do Tau fit into the tiny spaces in battlesuits? how the hell does a ninja death star get fired out of a shurikan cannon? how in gods name does anything Orky move?

speculations on all of these and more are welcome!!

In old Codices I remember something about how some equipment worked, where some other you can kind of figure out...

Lasguns work like 'our' lasers, diods, capacitors, lenss (magnetic or not... You should notice I am no engineer :p )
Bolts are essentially rockets/sabots: in Hh Massacre, iirc, you are given the calibre (50 to 70 mm, which is huge for guns) their shell is exploded like a round, then the rocket ignites, and it explodes on impact..
Plasma weapons fire plasma - obviously - and plasma is overheated, ionized gas. If the weapon does not have a perfect cooling system, or if you fire it too often, it overheats, that increases the resistance and dilates metal... Shoot again and it will fail
Melta weapons, in earlier days, was said to shoot microwaves (Maybe even white-hot air), so it looses coherency/temp quickly
Titans are giant robots piloted by a crew... It is more plausible than Grendizer manned by one single man..

Necrons' gauss/tesla shoot - I think - electricity in some forms, and I imagine Tau may barely feet, or seat, in crisis chests cockpits, then work the suit via neural connectors. Shuriken weapons have solid cartridges, and use a railgun-like system both to cut the monofilament disc and to hurl it. Orks... Well they put something together, and if it works they use it

W40K plasma isn't similar to ours. Theirs is vastly hotter than ours, as most tech in the Imperium is powered via fusion, AKA miniature stars.

And nobody knows how gauss works. The energy beam we see is actually the matter of the target it hit being sucked out- before it even hit.

The Machine God's works are incomprehensible for mere mortals such as we. Any attempt to understand the sacred divinity of technology is heresy.
Now get back to chanting, burning incense and praying so that we may get this machine back in working order.

Really, if the Imperium itself doesn't know how it's technology functions, how are we ever supposed to know?
The same is true for the Orks.
And Eldar and Necron technology is so advanced it could just as well be magic.

Lexicanum has some cool collections of pseudo-scientific blurbs on many of these weapon types.

I like how a lot of orc stuff works simply because they believe it will. Its like placebo effect ++

The main problem you'll find is that the fluff doesn't tally up; different authors describe things in different ways, often contradicting each other. Look at the arguments over how tall Space Marines are, or how bolters work, or what plasma actually is.

I'd say Ork tech is the easiest to understand because its the closest to ours...paint it red, hit it with a hammer, and swear at it.

 farmersboy wrote:
The main problem you'll find is that the fluff doesn't tally up; different authors describe things in different ways, often contradicting each other. Look at the arguments over how tall Space Marines are, or how bolters work, or what plasma actually is.

I'd say Ork tech is the easiest to understand because its the closest to ours...paint it red, hit it with a hammer, and swear at it.

Uh, what? Bolters are across the board consistent, same with plasma guns.

A lasbolt is a laser. A plasma gun is trying to fire really, really, really hot ionized gas using magnetic containment to keep it from melting through the gun, it overheats when the containment fails and the emergency venting failsafes kick in. A meltagun is short-ranged because whatever it's shooting disperses very easily traveling through the atmosphere and cools rapidly to ambient temperature. "Shuriken weapon" is hyperbole, they're effectively a really scary sandblasting device. "Gauss weapons" are described inconsistently in fluff, they're supposed to be beyond our comprehension. Most things have fairly simple explanations.

As a sidenote people like to exaggerate the effect of the Ork gestalt psychic field; you can't convince an Ork a stick is a gun and make it fire bullets. A human who picks up an Ork gun will find it's a perfectly functional if badly-designed gun machined to insanely bad tolerances with inconsistent propellant mix and what have you, the Orks' believing it's going to work just has subtle impact on probability such that it jams less than it should.

A lot of Ork Gear only works because of the latent psychic powers they posses.

The paint it red thing works because they believe it works and their psychic powers as a group make it so.

Supposedly most Ork gear (even simple items like shootas) won't work in the hands of anyone but an Ork, their belief it will shoot makes it do so.

 throwoff wrote:
A lot of Ork Gear only works because of the latent psychic powers they posses.

The paint it red thing works because they believe it works and their psychic powers as a group make it so.

Supposedly most Ork gear (even simple items like shootas) won't work in the hands of anyone but an Ork, their belief it will shoot makes it do so.

Some of it yes, but certainly not all. Meks possess intuitive knowledge of mechanics so are well capable of building functional machinery & weapons. The way I see this latent psychic ability is it works to 'fill in any little gaps' as it were, with how designs and methods vary from Mek to Mek and Ork to Ork instead of being standardised, giving rise to the Heath Robinson look of much of their gear.

With that in mind, while you'll find some Ork devices completely useless to a non-Greenskin (especially those which make direct use of said psychic power, such as I imagine the SAG), others could work fine and well and it would be as much your luck as judgement in what you end up with.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The main problem you'll find is that the fluff doesn't tally up; different authors describe things in different ways, often contradicting each other. Look at the arguments over how tall Space Marines are, or how bolters work, or what plasma actually is.

I'd say Ork tech is the easiest to understand because its the closest to ours...paint it red, hit it with a hammer, and swear at it.

Uh, what? Bolters are across the board consistent, same with plasma guns.

Do bolters fire Cased or Caseless ammunition? The text says one thing, the artwork says another.

Shuriken Catapults are beautiful things. They use gravimetric induction to shave a one-molecule-thick layer of wraithbone off a block, then hurl it at relativistic speeds towards the target.

Kind of like a railgun, but with gravity instead of magnetic force.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The main problem you'll find is that the fluff doesn't tally up; different authors describe things in different ways, often contradicting each other. Look at the arguments over how tall Space Marines are, or how bolters work, or what plasma actually is.

I'd say Ork tech is the easiest to understand because its the closest to ours...paint it red, hit it with a hammer, and swear at it.

Uh, what? Bolters are across the board consistent, same with plasma guns.

Do bolters fire Cased or Caseless ammunition? The text says one thing, the artwork says another.

Shuriken Catapults are beautiful things. They use gravimetric induction to shave a one-molecule-thick layer of wraithbone off a block, then hurl it at relativistic speeds towards the target.

Kind of like a railgun, but with gravity instead of magnetic force.

Thats a good point, they say its caseless, But it always makes give me Da Fuq look when I see shells falling out of the bolter. The caseless on the other hand is not hard to believe since the original Hk G36 was an electricly operated weapon with cases made out of hardened powder. MAKE UP YOUR MIND GW!!

If you think about it though a titan would collapse under its own weight... there is no way that something that big can stand and not sink without extreme foundations. some of the largest cranes in the world require entire slabs and piles put into the ground. (apologies I am a construstion nut)

but yeah some weapons are just incomprehensible such as a baneblade cannon. yeah okay big tank big gun and all that but youd think the recoil would just tear the turret off the poor thing.

Judging by the name, gauss weapons do funky things with magnetic fields.

Youd assume that wouldnt you? but god knows what they do or hopw they do it. or how its powered

You see, even bolt guns are confusing. IMHO, it's logical for bolt guns to fire caseless rounds, as they are in effect rocket-propelled projectiles with a booster charge (although I'm sure in real life that would make it incredibly inaccurate).

Here's another one for you, Space Marine Power Armour and auto-senses; right from the start the suit was described as processing all audio and visual input before passing it onto the marine via a neural connection. In effect this means that when the marine puts his helmet on he ceases to see with his eyes and hear with his ears, because everything is now being fed directly into his brain. This was described very well in one of the earlier HH novels, although I can't remember which one it is at the moment. This ties up with the description of the auto-senses preventing the marine being deafened or blinded, and allowing him to enhance his sight and hearing in artificial ways.

So how many times do you read about the marine calling up data or icons on his helmet lenses? As far as I can see he doesn't even look through them - why should he? With his helmet on he can close his eyes and still see perfectly well, because he's not using them (ref The Matrix - Neo's eyes hurt because he's never used them before).

As for the tanks, they're just more examples of GW's cartoonish approach to vehicle design; if mankind is using the last scraps of their umpteen thousand year old technology, do you really think all their tanks would look like something dreamed up in Norfolk circa 1916? Let's not worry our little heads about such minor matters as the size of the main gun's breach block, depression angles, or just where do the crew fit it?

A lot of tau stuff is actually deceptively easy to understand. Rail guns are just that linear accelerators. Pulse weapons are coil weapons, another type on linear accelerator, and actually more technological advanced than rail guns. Some of the tech in battlesuits such as servo motars are just really advanced versions of things we have today. Anti-grav is completely unknown however creating an anti-gravtic 'bubble' undernith the tank (or in many cases battlesuit). Battle suits jet packs are a combination of jets and anti-grav tech.

Fusion guns in general work by combing highly pressurized gas into an unstable sub-molecular thermal state which is then fired out in an intense blast of heat. Plasma weapons, or at least imperial ones, function by using sturdy flasks of hydrogen suspended in a photonic state to provide fuel needed for the plasma reaction.

I would like to think that the 'name' of the weapon after 40,000 years of technology and a 10,000 year lapse of decaying knowledge no longer has anything to do with the actual weapon. Sort of like how all firearms to me are 'guns.' A lascannon may fire cannon balls for all we know and some Adminitrum guy though lascannon was a great name.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The main problem you'll find is that the fluff doesn't tally up; different authors describe things in different ways, often contradicting each other. Look at the arguments over how tall Space Marines are, or how bolters work, or what plasma actually is.

I'd say Ork tech is the easiest to understand because its the closest to ours...paint it red, hit it with a hammer, and swear at it.

Uh, what? Bolters are across the board consistent, same with plasma guns.

Do bolters fire Cased or Caseless ammunition? The text says one thing, the artwork says another.

Shuriken Catapults are beautiful things. They use gravimetric induction to shave a one-molecule-thick layer of wraithbone off a block, then hurl it at relativistic speeds towards the target.

Kind of like a railgun, but with gravity instead of magnetic force.

Then the text is bs, as we know by the models themselves that GW purposely modeled ejector ports and are fed cased ammunition.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 doomdreamer wrote:
I would like to think that the 'name' of the weapon after 40,000 years of technology and a 10,000 year lapse of decaying knowledge no longer has anything to do with the actual weapon. Sort of like how all firearms to me are 'guns.' A lascannon may fire cannon balls for all we know and some Adminitrum guy though lascannon was a great name.

No. All lasguns are explicitly lasers, this is clear throughout the fluff save outliers.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The main problem you'll find is that the fluff doesn't tally up; different authors describe things in different ways, often contradicting each other. Look at the arguments over how tall Space Marines are, or how bolters work, or what plasma actually is.

I'd say Ork tech is the easiest to understand because its the closest to ours...paint it red, hit it with a hammer, and swear at it.

Uh, what? Bolters are across the board consistent, same with plasma guns.

Do bolters fire Cased or Caseless ammunition? The text says one thing, the artwork says another.

Shuriken Catapults are beautiful things. They use gravimetric induction to shave a one-molecule-thick layer of wraithbone off a block, then hurl it at relativistic speeds towards the target.

Kind of like a railgun, but with gravity instead of magnetic force.

Then the text is bs, as we know by the models themselves that GW purposely modeled ejector ports and are fed cased ammunition.

Spoiler:

And if you look at the art of the bolts themselves they obviously have cases. Comp[letely OT but when I herd about bolters the first time I thought of the giant rivet guns in Bioshock. Also, very well painted model.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 doomdreamer wrote:
I would like to think that the 'name' of the weapon after 40,000 years of technology and a 10,000 year lapse of decaying knowledge no longer has anything to do with the actual weapon. Sort of like how all firearms to me are 'guns.' A lascannon may fire cannon balls for all we know and some Adminitrum guy though lascannon was a great name.

No. All lasguns are explicitly lasers, this is clear throughout the fluff save outliers.

Although you have to admit, it is pretty funy.

Model isn't mine, it's from a fellow dakkanite that I grabbed from the gallery, as it had the best view of a boltgun I knew of.

The problem is that the figures and artwork look cooler when there are belts of ammo and lots of brass flying out of ejector ports and the like. It's pretty much expected I guess, as most people wouldn't understand about caseless ammunition.

 farmersboy wrote:
The problem is that the figures and artwork look cooler when there are belts of ammo and lots of brass flying out of ejector ports and the like. It's pretty much expected I guess, as most people wouldn't understand about caseless ammunition.

Caseless ammunition can be fed by belts. Just that there isn't anything to eject.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The problem is that the figures and artwork look cooler when there are belts of ammo and lots of brass flying out of ejector ports and the like. It's pretty much expected I guess, as most people wouldn't understand about caseless ammunition.

Caseless ammunition can be fed by belts. Just that there isn't anything to eject.

Well, yes and no...belt links?

 farmersboy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The problem is that the figures and artwork look cooler when there are belts of ammo and lots of brass flying out of ejector ports and the like. It's pretty much expected I guess, as most people wouldn't understand about caseless ammunition.

Caseless ammunition can be fed by belts. Just that there isn't anything to eject.

Well, yes and no...belt links?

The Army's working on a caseless LMG to cut down on weight, belt fed. I'd imagine they just rip out the spent belt link and bring it back to be refilled when the rounds are all spent.

... that is only "caseless" by technical definition, since there are obviously plastic cases around those rounds. In fact, I would not, personally, call that a caseless round. All it did was move the case from being an integral part of the round itself to the belt....

Besides, the art for heavy bolters shows them as having cased ammunition and, lastly, many Imperial citizens will carry around the spent casings of Astartes bolt weapons as good luck charms.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
The problem is that the figures and artwork look cooler when there are belts of ammo and lots of brass flying out of ejector ports and the like. It's pretty much expected I guess, as most people wouldn't understand about caseless ammunition.

Caseless ammunition can be fed by belts. Just that there isn't anything to eject.

Well, yes and no...belt links?

Spoiler:

The Army's working on a caseless LMG to cut down on weight, belt fed. I'd imagine they just rip out the spent belt link and bring it back to be refilled when the rounds are all spent.

No, that's a conventional linked belt that comes apart....

 MrBlackledge wrote:
If you think about it though a titan would collapse under its own weight... there is no way that something that big can stand and not sink without extreme foundations. some of the largest cranes in the world require entire slabs and piles put into the ground. (apologies I am a construstion nut)

but yeah some weapons are just incomprehensible such as a baneblade cannon. yeah okay big tank big gun and all that but youd think the recoil would just tear the turret off the poor thing.

I'd love to see the Imperium invade modern day earth and send Titans to somewhere like Florida.

Imperial Commander "That continent seems to be where the resistance is heaviest. We have unleashed a full Titan Legio on that Wang shaped penninsula. Let our enemies tremble!

Earth deploys SINKHOLE!! It's super effective.

Imperial Commander "Oh...let's go home and pretend this never happened"